You Just Wait And See (How Things Are Gonna Be)
by Memorium Activity
Summary: Shinji gets some new music to listen to. Eventual Shinji/Asuka, mild Peter/Gamora.
1. Chapter One

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 **You Just Wait And See (How Things Are Gonna Be)**

 _Chapter One: What's The Matter With Your Mind And All Your Sighing?_

Peter Quill's eyes flew open.

Which was weird, because he had _literally_ just gone to sleep.

"Wha..." he muttered, feeling his stubbled jaw. "How did...what..."

He trailed off as he realised he was lying on wet tarmac in the middle of a street.

"Oh, god- _ **dammit**_!" he swore, eyes widening in disbelief. " _Seriously_?"

Pushing up off of the road, Peter stood up, and instantly squirmed as he realised he was barefoot.

Ravagers were, as a habit, disinterested in the concept of pyjamas, and Peter only slept naked if someone else was accompanying him for it, so apart from his jacket, shoes, and socks, he was basically in his regular clothes. The other Guardians questioned this when they first moved in with him, but Peter was not to be dissuaded from the habit of a lifetime, no matter what concerned variation of 'I am Groot' he heard. It was honestly stupid that they'd complain about him happily mixing day-clothes and night-clothes. The new _Milano_ even had a washing machine, as opposed to Peter's old method of 'mix detergent with shower'.

Gingerly stepping over to the nearest pavement with squelching feet, Peter glanced around to get his bearings, scanning the skies for spaceships. This couldn't have been a practical joke on Rocket's part, because the furry weapons expert would have been following close by and helplessly snickering if that were the case. Groot was too nice to randomly drop Peter somewhere like this, and he doubted Gamora or Drax had done it. If he'd pissed either of them off, they would have demanded something up-front like a duel. They were honourable that way.

"Hell with this," Peter said, carefully watching where he put his feet, wary of broken glass and other garbage.

As he carefully walked towards the end of the street, however, Peter realised that there _wasn't_ any refuse. The tarmac he walked on was strangely clear of garbage or people, or even the signs of spaceships landing. The dozens and dozens of grey, squarish buildings that surrounded him seemed oddly familiar, too.

Peter squinted as he came to the end of the street. There were huge letters on the side of distant building's wall, letters that Peter couldn't immediately understand but that looked weirdly familiar.

Memories of Peter's youth flooded back to him. Before his mother had fully succumbed to her deadly illness, he often skipped school to visit her, or just to be alone for a while. For an eight-year old boy in 1988, there were only two kinds of places to hang out that weren't soul-crushingly boring: dollar theatres, and arcades.

And what Peter saw before him, across the street, currently closed but still wondrous in its appearance, was a fully-furnished arcade with hundreds of machines, glorious prizes, and an enormous sign sprawled across the shopfront. The sign was written in a language that Peter didn't really speak, but would, thanks to hours upon hours of quarter-fuelled gaming, forever recognise.

Japan. Peter was in Japan.

He was on Earth.

He was _home_.

But where the hell was everyone else?

Sticking his hands in his pockets, Peter walked out into the next street over, where a few cars and pedestrians were travelling through the city. Most of the people he saw were in smart business suits, as expected, and Peter adopted his usual confident strut, hoping that it would cover up the fact that he was a strange American wandering the middle of a city without shoes. Yet nobody seemed to notice him no matter how many times he gave a cheerful 'Konnichi-wa', which might have been for the best, as that was almost all the Japanese he knew.

"Shit," Peter said, folding his arms.

His translator implant had no files for Japanese, so everything around was a mystery to him. The city sprawled like a rat's maze, made worse because of its massive size. It seemed unnecessary, really. Huge crosswalks served only a few people, there weren't all that many cars on the road, and some of the buildings looked near-empty to Peter's eyes. Didn't Japan have serious space problems? There were millions and millions of people living in a few tiny islands. Had something gone badly wrong since he'd left, twenty-seven years ago?

Twenty-seven years. He'd spent less than a quarter of his life living on Earth, and now he was back with no explanation at all. What had happened to the _Milano_? Was this something to do with the Infinity Stone, or his long-lost father being an unknown species? And were his friends looking for him right now?

Shaking his head to clear it of such unanswerable questions, Peter walked a block towards the south, guiding himself by the rising sun to his left. He looked around for a phone booth and finally spotted one, breaking into a run to get to it before someone else could-

"Oh, come on!" Peter complained as a teenage boy wearing a white shirt and big squarish glasses entered the booth, dialling quickly and with great excitement on his face.

The boy ignored him and quickly began rambling in Japanese, although whoever he was calling cut him off every few seconds to respond. Peter tapped his shoeless foot, huffing, and reached into his pockets to find absolutely nothing. At first, he grimaced in frustration, but then upon reflection, remembered that the phone wouldn't accept Units anyway.

Putting his hands on his hips, Peter was about to ask the boy if he could borrow a yen when he felt a familiar squarish bulk attached to the side of his pants.

With triumphant glee, Peter looked down to see his beloved Walkman and headphones, attached to the side of his belt like always. When Peter was a kid, one of the Ravagers had tried to steal the Walkman once - _once_ \- and Peter had never taken chances with his mother's last gift since then. The other Guardians hadn't really questioned why he slept with it, as he often played his tapes at low volume when he drifted off to sleep.

"Well," he said, shrugging. "None'a you seem to care anyway."

He plugged the headphones into the Walkman, pressed play, and strutted off down the street in search of an American consulate and a shoe shop, in that order.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Shinji Ikari sat alone in his room, headphones around his ears, listening to his SDAT tape player.

It had been a restless night's sleep. He had stared up at the ceiling for most of the night, but it was still unfamiliar, as was the city he lived in and the people he knew. He'd left everything behind to be here in search of a very simple hope.

It had rapidly turned into a nightmare.

The music in Shinji's ears suddenly stopped, and he picked up the SDAT player to find out why. The screen was blank, so the batteries had worn out.

Shinji sat up from his futon, sighing. He'd already gone out for supplies at five in the morning, incapable of lying awake for a second more. He had carefully placed them around the kitchen outside; some in the cupboards, some in the fridge. Going out again would mean that people might see him. People might recognise him from the news, remember who he was, and question what the hell he'd been doing yesterday.

Pulling the headphones off, Shinji calmed himself by remembering that that was a stupid thing to think. Nobody noticed him back home, and nobody would notice him here. He could move undetected through the city, because he honestly wasn't that important.

Except, unfortunately, when it really, really counted.

Maybe the attacks would end. Maybe everyone would forget him, and he would just meld into a sea of faces once more, blissfully unnoticed.

It was a shame that he'd have to go without the SDAT for the walk to the convenience store, though. The music in there was _his_ world, like sensory deprivation. He was an island when the SDAT played, and everyone else was perfectly distant.

Then, Shinji heard singing. A man's voice, not out-of-key but clearly amateur, was coming from outside, belting out a song with some enthusiasm. Shinji listened carefully, but caught little more than the gist of it. It was about a spirit in the sky.

Shinji pulled his legs up close to him in a fetal position, and then went into a crouch on his futon. He shifted to face his window, and peeked over the sill to the street outside.

The man singing was a foreigner, perhaps European or American, with light brown hair and a wide jaw. He looked like he was roughly Misato's age, and was handsome in a slightly rough way. As he sang, he walked down the street in a travelling dance that seemed to be a long series of well-timed moves strung together through nothing but feeling. Shinji had never seen anyone dance so well, or care so little about what anyone else might think of them.

The man turned his head and saw that Shinji was watching him, and Shinji considered ducking under the windowsill, embarrassed. But the man simply kept dancing for a few seconds more before neatly sliding his hand to the tape player on his belt and pushing it, all in an action so fluid that Shinji could barely believe it was really happening.

Then the man pulled off his headphones, and called out to Shinji.

"Hey!" Peter yelled, looking up at the boy ahead of him, through the apartment's back window.

The boy slowly and reluctantly stood up, pushing the window up as he did so. He seemed to be a teenager, his dark hair short and his arms long and thin. He was clad in a white shirt, and he had deep blue eyes. That confused Peter (didn't Japanese people only have brown eyes?), but the boy seemed to actually admit that he was there, which was more than Peter could say for anyone else he'd seen in this city. (Maybe he was wearing contacts, or something.)

"...h-hello," Shinji said quietly.

The man apparently hadn't heard him.

"What?" the man yelled back.

"Hello," Shinji said again, a little louder.

Peter rejoiced at his luck, finally finding someone who didn't ignore him _and_ spoke English.

"Hey, I need to come up and use your phone," Peter said. "It's okay, I'll dial reverse."

The boy considered this for some time.

"Alright," Shinji finally said. "It's apartment 43."

"Thanks, see you in a minute!" the foreigner shouted, and he quickly disappeared from Shinji's sight to run up the stairs.

Shinji took a deep breath and opened his room's door, thankful for the sound-cushioning effect of his socks as he walked towards the apartment's front door. Pulling back the locks, Shinji opened the door to see the foreigner again.

"Hey," the man said.

"Hello," Shinji said. "Please take off your-..."

He did a small double-take as when he noticed the foreigner's bare feet.

"Long story," Peter said.

Shinji slowly nodded, holding the door open, and the man stepped inside Misato's apartment, stamping his feet to get the water out of them. As he dried his feet, Peter glanced at the shoes in the opening alcove. Small sneakers sat next to high heels. Either the kid was a cross-dresser, or he lived with a woman, probably older.

"Please," Shinji said, stepping back, and Peter entered the apartment proper.

The boy continued to move backwards until they came to a kitchen and dining area, with a veranda off in the distance to Peter's right. Peter kept his distance, well aware that letting random people into your house wasn't considered a great idea, but the boy didn't seem that bothered about it.

"So," Peter said. "...you have a name?"

"Sh-shinji," Shinji replied, still looking down. "Shinji...Ikari."

He looked up from the floor to see if the foreigner would react to his family name, but there was obviously no recognition in the man's eyes.

"I'm Peter Quill," the man said, with an obvious and assured confidence. "People call me Star-Lord."

"Really?" Shinji said, innocently but with a touch of disbelief.

The man's brows furrowed a little.

"Yeah," he said, mildly annoyed.

He looked around the apartment, considered the beer cans, trays of half-eaten food, and complete lack of anything approaching organisation or hygiene, and immediately felt right at home.

"Where am I, anyway?" he asked.

"...Tokyo-3," said Shinji.

Peter looked confused.

"They made two more?" he asked.

Shinji had no idea how the foreigner could have forgotten that Tokyo-3 existed, particularly when he was _in_ it that very second. Somehow, the stranger could speak perfect Japanese, yet he wasn't aware that the original Tokyo had long since been destroyed.

Shinji wondered if he was dangerous. Normal people didn't go without shoes, or wander the streets dancing, after all. That was strange.

But Shinji had been experiencing high amounts of 'strange' lately, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was just another instalment of the Night Parade Of One Hundred Things To Disturb Shinji.

"Your...Japanese is good," Shinji said.

Peter stared at him.

"I...thankyou?" he said.

He slowly reached up to the implant in his ear, and found it wasn't gently buzzing like it usually did when it translated for him.

"Are you with NERV?" Shinji asked.

Lowering his hand, Peter surreptitiously glanced out of the veranda, and noticed a pair of trucks driving past outside, both painted black, and both with large red logos on them. A red leaf with four letters - N, E, R, V - was painted on the sides of both of them, along with some more letters Peter couldn't make out at this distance.

His gaze shifted back to Shinji, who was watching him expectantly.

"...yes," Peter said. "Yes I am."

"So your code name is Star-Lord?" Shinji asked.

"It's an outlaw name," Peter corrected him out of habit.

Realising that there weren't exactly many outlaws on Earth anymore, Peter added:

"'Cause...I'm usually freelance, but NERV hired me to do NERV things."

"Oh," said Shinji. "Okay."

Peter usually considered himself an accomplished rearranger of the truth, but he knew that that was the worst lying he'd ever done, even including the time when he'd tried to convince a Makluan scoutship that he was a Ravager fleet. (Not that the _Milano_ was a fleet - that he, _by himself_ , was a fleet. Although that _had_ worked, thanks to the timely intervention of a Z'nox, who Peter owed money to.) Either Shinji was the most gullible person in history, or he completely, utterly didn't care.

Judging by the nervous, melancholy expression on the boy's face, Peter was going to go with the second option.

"How 'bout you?" Peter asked, trying to sound friendly, hoping the boy would at least attempt to smile out of politeness. "Do your parents work for NERV?"

Shinji's expression darkened.

"My father does," said Shinji, in a low tone. "And my mother."

The boy blinked.

"W-well, she did," he added.

Peter's face fell.

That was it. That was more than enough to drag somebody down. And by the way he said 'my father', Peter guessed that there was something wrong there, too.

Peter's mother had always been there for him. Even as she lay dying, even as her heart slowly gave out entirely, killed by the poison that was supposed to kill the cancer first. He'd run away, into a strange and frightening world, kept sane only by memories and the gifts she'd given him. And if this kid's dad wasn't around, or worked too hard, or just plain sucked as a parent, Peter could completely understand what was up with Shinji.

But stranger still was the unfamiliar liquid running down from the edges of Shinji's straight black hair, staining his white shirt with drops of orange.

"What's with your hair?" Peter asked, his eyes thinning.

"I-it's LCL," said Shinji.

With some regret, he added:

"I thought I washed it out."

The boy's tone bothered Peter something fierce, and he resolved to learn why.

"Listen," he said to Shinji, "I just got transferred to Tokyo-3 from the..."

His eyes flicked away to think of a cover.

"...Alderaan NERV base," he eventually continued, "so can you fill me in on what's been going on lately?"

He wondered if even Shinji would see through such an obvious lie, but the boy simply stammered out:

"Y-you want _me_ to tell you?"

"No-one else," said Peter.

"There's Misato," Shinji said, casting a look to his left, towards a closed door leading to a room across from the kitchen. "But she's asleep."

He gave Peter a cautious look.

"I'm...not gonna get into trouble?" he asked.

Peter's jaw set in his mouth.

"No," he said.

Shinji laid it out. At first with considerable pauses, repeatedly asking Peter to assure him that he wouldn't suffer consequences for talking. Peter replied that he was not allowed to punish Shinji by any means whatsoever, and eventually Shinji got on with the story.

The boy told Peter about how long he'd been alone, without either of his parents. One dead, the other distant and never visiting. He didn't mention any friends, or even of a close relationship with the man who raised him, skipping over almost his entire life within the space of a few sentences.

But then he spoke of coming to Tokyo-3, and he told Peter what happened with increasing pace and exceptionally close detail. A sudden enormous beast threatening the city, leaving him alone and vulnerable, unevacuated. The hopeless attack of the Japanese army, deflected by the monster without a second thought. The N2 mine, some kind of non-nuclear bomb that filled the air with a surge of fire, yet did nothing at all to the approaching monster. A near-unstoppable threat that he had been forced to fight, trapped inside a monster of his own, given no reason or training, only constant demands to win victory, or let the whole city die in the wake of his failure. The strange orange liquid that filled his lungs and burned him, still clinging to him now despite intense scrubbing, only called 'LCL'. The terrifying screams of the being they called an 'Angel'.

And the people who'd brought him there.

Misato, or Captain Katsuragi, a friendly woman was also his superior officer in the field.

Dr Akagi, a cold yet brilliant scientist, her stern eyes intimidating Shinji whenever she looked at him.

Rei Ayanami, a quiet and mysterious girl, horribly injured from piloting and pushed to the brink of death, enough that even Shinji chose to fight rather than letting her do it again.

Commander Ikari, Shinji's father. A man he'd barely spoken to since his mother died, always distant, and barely interested in Shinji's existence. He ran the program of building, containing and directing the monster that Shinji had been forced to pilot.

A synthetic humanoid lifeform known as an Evangelion. NERV's only defence against the Angels that planned to destroy Tokyo-3, slaughter every human being on the planet, and rule Earth as their own.

And right now, Shinji Ikari was the only person in Japan capable of piloting one.

Peter took some time to process this. His eyes were still, but not as stoic as he hoped, for he could feel them watering, and blinked quickly to push tears away. He had been raised by some of the toughest men in the galaxy, and they scorned crying.

But what got to him most was Shinji's face throughout the ordeal of relaying what had happened. The boy's expression had barely changed from when he'd first greeted Peter and let him into the apartment. This horror had stuck with him, and would stick with him, just as surely as the LCL clung to his skin.

Shinji's mother was long gone, and his father was worse than useless.

But Peter was there.

Peter reached down and, finding his Walkman, quickly rewound it to the right spot, expertly pushing 'stop' just as it hit the correct time. This done, he pulled his orange headphones from his neck, and held them out to Shinji.

The boy stared back at him.

"Take them," Peter said quietly.

Shinji reached out for them, and his thin pale fingers wrapped around their band, taking them from Peter, who carefully let go.

"Put 'em on," Peter said.

"Do I have to sing?" Shinji asked.

Peter smiled a little.

"Whatever you want, man," he said.

Shinji put the headphones around his own ears, and Peter pressed play.

The smooth and slow sounds of a song began to play through the Walkman. It was a song that had carried Peter more than any other on the tape his mother made for him. She had enjoyed it when she was young - she had enjoyed all of them - and she had made the mix as her gift to Peter, her way of making sure he could carry on.

It had worked.

And Peter hoped to whatever god was listening, or existed, that it would work for Shinji, too.

Slowly, over a long time, his breaths synchronising to the beat of the song, Shinji's eyes became distant, and he was no longer with Peter, or in the room, or even on Earth anymore. Music had taken him beyond space and time, and for those few minutes, Shinji Ikari forgot the wall he held up against the world. Tears fell from his eyes, and he shifted his weight on his feet in regular time, gently swaying to the sounds he heard.

The song began to fade out, familiar to Peter even without wearing the headphones, and he pushed the stop button on his tape player. Shinji became still again, and he slowly, almost robotically raised his hand to take the headphones off. He handed them to Peter, who gingerly took them from the boy.

"What was that?" Shinji asked.

" _I'm Not In Love_ , 10CC," Peter said. "You like it?"

"I've...never heard anything like it before," Shinji replied.

He sniffed and gave a double-take, as if he'd only just realised how much he'd been crying, and quickly reached inside his pocket for tissues.

"I-I'm sorry," he said, after wiping his eyes.

"No," said Peter.

"...what?" asked Shinji.

"Anyone who says you should be sorry for crying has no idea what you had to do," said Peter. "And I..."

He looked away.

"I can't say I've done what you've done," he said. "Not the same. But I lost my mom, same as you. And not a day goes by I don't regret running."

"...running," Shinji murmured.

"Yeah," said Peter.

He looked back at Shinji, and slowly looped his thumbs around his waist, nodding.

"'Cause the guys who raised me after her wanted to eat me," he said, matter-of-factly.

Shinji stared at him in shock.

"... _what?!_ " the boy said.

"I know!" said Peter. "Every day, 'hey Peter, maybe we'll eat you'. 'Sleep well, pleasant dreams, might wake up in a pot'. Like _that's_ a normal thing to tell a kid!"

Shinji's shoulders shook, the corners of his mouth turned, and he laughed, at first barely held back by his firmly-shut mouth, and then genuinely and completely.

"I'm sorry," he said, despite his giggling.

"Don't be," said Peter, grinning, glad of the change. "You haven't tried to eat me yet."

Shinji chuckled more until Peter spoke again.

"But there's more than that," Peter said. "I'm not alone now. I've got friends. Friends who helped me kill a guy with enough power to wipe out a planet."

Shinji's eyes widened, and Peter stretched his arms up over head, which he swivelled around, cracking his neck.

"Soooo," he said, "if I can make some calls, borrow whichever shuttle's closest to here, get to a star-way...I'm sure we can lick this Angel problem real fast, and send you off wherever."

Shinji considered this.

"You're not from NERV, are you?" the boy asked.

Peter considered whether to tell him, and then decided hey, what the hell.

"I'm from space," he replied.

"...okay," said Shinji, shrugging.

Peter wondered whether Shinji accepted this immediately because he was too meek to argue with much of anything, or because he'd recently seen shit so weird, a guy from space was nothing.

His train of thought was cut off when the creaking sound of a door opening got his attention, and he heard a woman say:

"Good morning, Shinji!"

Peter and Shinji turned to look at the woman who had just left the far bedroom. She looked to be in her late twenties, with long dark purple hair (dyed?) and a cute, delicate face. She was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and short denim shorts, like a bedraggled Japanese Daisy Duke, and despite her just-got-out-of-bed demeanour, or perhaps because of it, Peter was suddenly very, very interested.

"... _hi_ ," said Peter, summoning all of his not-inconsiderable charm.

The woman smiled towards the pair of them, but said nothing in response.

Peter reached his hand over his shoulder, elbow pointing in the air, partly to scratch his back and partly because doing this made his t-shirt ride up, which he knew for a fact drove women wild with excitement.

"Are you his older sister?" he asked the rapidly-approaching woman. "Cause-"

The woman in question walked straight through him.

Peter froze in abject bewilderment as the woman continued on with walking over to Shinji as if she _hadn't_ just phased through Peter like he was nothing but air.

"Uh..." Shinji said.

His smile having disappeared, the boy stared at Peter in a mix of horror and deep confusion.

Peter, for his part, could only stare back.

"Breakfast?" the woman suggested.

"Alright, Misato," Shinji said.

"Misato?" said Peter, pointing to the woman. "Captain Misato Katsuragi? She's your-"

Peter broke off, and turned to Misato.

"...you're _his_ commanding officer?" he asked, in a louder voice than he normally spoke with.

Shinji waited for Misato to answer Peter, but she simply stared at Shinji, still smiling.

"Shinji?" she said.

"Y-yes," Shinji said. "Breakfast."

His eyes repeatedly flicked from Peter to Misato nervously, and he mumbled:

"Breakfast. Breakfast, breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfa-"

"Quit _saying_ that!" Peter said.

"I'm sorry!" Shinji replied.

Misato frowned, and turned back to see what exactly Shinji was looking at over her shoulder.

She stared right into Peter's eyes, and saw nothing.

"...that's okay, Shinji," she said, turning back to him. "You're probably a bit beat up after fighting that Angel. I can make-"

"No, it's fine!" said Shinji quickly. "I'd like to cook, really!"

Peter stared at Misato, and experimentally poked at her, his finger phasing right through her every time. She quickly left, and Peter stepped out of the way as Shinji busied himself with washing his hands in the kitchen sink, gathering pots and pans, and taking eggs and milk out of the fridge.

Shinji was grabbing a small white bowl and opening the egg carton when he felt Peter experimentally poke at his shoulder.

"...what are you doing?" he whispered out of the side of his mouth, as a few metres behind him, the sound of Misato opening the day's first beer from the comfort of the couch rang out.

"She can't hear me," Peter said. "Or see me. Doesn't even know I'm here, can't even touch me."

"Yes," whispered Shinji, cracking an egg on the side of the bowl and carefully dropping its contents inside.

"Outside, same thing," said Peter. "I don't remember going through anybody, but no-one noticed I was there."

"Hmm," said Shinji, cracking another egg on the side of the bowl.

Peter waved a hand past the kitchen tabletop, and it passed straight through that as well.

"Nothin' else, either," Peter said. "No-one can see me, no-one can hear me, can't touch anything except floors, the ground and you."

"Hm," said Shinji, taking another egg from the carton.

He _did_ feel an astonishing connection with a floor, or the ground. Something that everyone else built on, and just expected to be there.

He raised his hands, the egg held carefully between his fingers, only to have his left arm's rise cut short by Peter grabbing it. Shinji flinched, worried that he'd done something wrong, but Peter's expression was one of curiosity and potential, not anger.

"Crack it with one hand," Peter said.

Shinji frowned.

"...that's impossible," he said.

"What?" Misato called.

Shinji gave Peter a pained and frustrated look, and called out to Misato:

"Nothing."

"It's not impossible," said Peter. "It's cracking an egg. Chefs do it all the time."

"I'm not a chef," Shinji whispered.

"Then why are you cooking?" asked Peter.

"B-because Misato isn't very good at it," said Shinji.

"Then how come you're doing cooked breakfast?" asked Peter. "If you weren't a chef, you'd be doing something basic, like...uh..."

He trailed off.

"We eat rice in the morning," Shinji whispered helpfully.

"Thankyou!" said Peter. "Rice, yeah. I'm an American."

"I guessed," muttered Shinji.

"But you can totally crack an egg in one hand," said Peter. "Tap the bowl, pull it apart. You can do it."

"N-no," Shinji said. "No, I can't."

Peter considered this.

He then let go of Shinji's arm, made a great show of shrugging, and stepped away from Shinji, turning his back on him entirely.

"Is she single?" he asked, looking over at Misato.

"She doesn't even know you exist," Shinji murmured.

"That's no reason to give up," Peter said.

Shinji turned away from the bowl, its third egg still uncracked and in his hand, and stared at Peter. Everything he said and did made the opposite of sense, and it wasn't just the fact that he seemed to be a Shinji-only ghost. People didn't break habits of breaking eggs; there was no point. Omelettes were made one way.

...right?

"How do you break it one-handed?" Shinji asked, quietly.

"Hold it with your fingers," Peter instructed, not looking back.

"Right."

"Put your thumb on the middle part," said Peter. "It's weakest there."

Shinji moved the egg around in his right hand, his thumb feeling its cool outer shell.

"Uh-huh," he said.

"Tap it on the bowl, then open the egg up with your pointer and middle fingers," said Peter. "If you do it even, shouldn't be much shell inside."

"I don't think that's possible," Shinji said.

Peter still did not turn. It was a tactic he usually used for negotiation, when he was fairly sure the person he was talking to wouldn't shoot him in the back.

Shinji shut his eyes and concentrated.

"Down on the bowl, open it up," he whispered. "Down on the bowl, open it up. Down on the bowl, open it up. Down on the bowl, _open it-_ "

He winced and gave an upset yelp as he felt the egg explode into a gooey mess in his hand, shards of the shell mixing in with the yolk and white, now utterly indistinguishable.

"What is it?" Misato called out from the sofa.

"...I broke an egg," Shinji said.

"It's okay," said Misato. "Just throw it out and use another one."

Shinji let the remnants of his latest failure fall into the garbage can, and then slowly washed his hands in the kitchen sink, scrubbing them with the nearby soap. He had bought it, the eggs and milk from the convenience store earlier that morning, when a nightmare of the Angel attacking again had made it impossible to get back to sleep. Besides, judging by the pre-made junk Misato had considered a 'feast' for dinner, he figured she wouldn't do much different for breakfast.

As he finished cleaning his hands, he noticed that Peter was looking at him again.

"It's okay," the older man said. "You just have to practice."

Shinji shook his head.

"I'm not wasting food for something there's no point in doing," he said, resentment creeping into his low whisper. "I'll just do it how I've always done it."

Peter stared at him.

"You're... _literally_ not willing to break a few eggs to make an omelette?" he asked.

Shinji said nothing to him.

That silent treatment continued as Shinji cooked the omelettes in a square frying pan, resulting in eggy cubes that clearly delighted Misato as her charge served them up to her. Peter noted with some interest that Shinji wouldn't let Misato eat on the couch, insisting that she come to the kitchen table for food. Evidently, even the incredibly shy boy had some sense of pride, and the ghost of a smile that appeared on Shinji's face when Misato enthusiastically wolfed down her serving of omelettes only served as further evidence. They smelled pretty good to Peter as well, although attempting to grab the breakfast snacks proved just as useless as trying to touch anything else.

"But _she's_ your commander?" said Peter, as Misato left to go take a shower, leaving Shinji to stack the apartment's dishwasher.

Shinji's blue eyes flicked to the back of the retreating Misato, then put the egg-mix bowl down into the dishwasher, and nodded tersely.

"And you guys live together?"

Shinji nodded again.

"You can talk," said Peter. "She's gone for now."

"She's only a few metres away," Shinji whispered to Peter, putting the plates between plastic spikes. "If she hears me talking to you, she'll think I'm crazy."

"They're stickin' you in a giant robot to fight Sigmund Freud's sex dreams, and she'd think _you're_ crazy?" Peter asked incredulously.

Shinji shook his head.

"I'm the only one," he said. "It has to be me, until Rei gets better."

He closed the dishwasher, and walked through the kitchen and to the right to another door, Peter following.

"I have to get changed," Shinji said, sliding open the door to what was obviously his bedroom. "There's more training I have to do."

Peter looked pained at this, but slowly nodded. He then unhooked his Walkman from his pants, and held it and its headphones out to Shinji.

"I know you can touch these," he said. "Keep them somewhere in your room. Safe."

"Why?" Shinji asked.

"You really think that after everything you just told me, I'm gonna let you go in there alone?" Peter asked, hands on his hips.

"I'm not alone," said Shinji. "Misato's there with me."

"She's NERV," said Peter. "I'm not. And you're not, either."

Shinji disagreed, but he couldn't bring himself to argue with Peter given the man's determined expression.

"...alright," Shinji finally said.

He took the Walkman and its headphones from Peter, and looked down at both of them in his hands, turning the tape player around.

"...'Awesome Mix Volume One'?" he read.

"Yeah," said Peter. "My mother...she made it, and gave me that Walkman. Before she died."

Shinji gave a sad smile of recognition.

"I'm glad you have something from her," he said.

He stepped into his room, and slid the door closed behind him.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX


	2. Chapter Two

Hey everybody! Have another chapter.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

 _Chapter Two: It's Just A Silly Phase I'm Going Through_

The three of them stood in an elevator, Peter still invisible and intangible to everyone but Shinji.

NERV headquarters, Peter had discovered, was an enormous underground cavern beneath Tokyo-3 that spanned miles and miles. It had fake sunlight piped in, and judging by the generally dim result, Peter guessed they were doing it with giant mirrors rather than regular lights. There was a large lake, parks, and a dazzling array of official-looking people in sharp uniforms running up and down escalators, striding across catwalks, and even sitting in ski-lifts. Shinji had whispered 'the Geofront' with wide eyes and a sense of purposeful awe when they'd first seen it, which Peter took as a hint that the cavern's name was 'the Geofront'. He was now doubly thankful that floors and seats in general still 'worked' for him, because he would _not_ want to take the stairs here.

Peter didn't respond to Shinji's words. The legendary outlaw didn't want Shinji to seem like he was talking to himself, and he wasn't aiming to have another one-sided conversation with the boy either.

He wondered why it had to be a kid, and more specifically, why it had to be Shinji. The guy had 'scared of his own shadow' written all over him - or, more accurately, 'scared of upsetting, offending, or in any way whatsoever _affecting_ his shadow'. Shinji melted and hid whenever anybody noticed him, and given the fact that they had passed at least twenty cameras since they'd first plummeted to this weird place, there weren't many places to hide in the Geofront at all.

"How come you even have Tokyo-3?" asked Peter.

He looked around the cavern as the elevator doors opened and the three of them stepped out onto a walkway, heading towards a large, round, iron door. At the very top of the dome's curve, small buildings were hanging down.

"You could stick everyone down here," he commented. "Angels wouldn't have anyone to kill."

Shinji looked to Misato, walking beside and a little behind her.

"Uh...M-misato?" he asked. "I mean, Captain Katsuragi?"

"Yes?" said Misato, her tone more professional now that they were in NERV.

"Um...well...I was just thinking...why doesn't NERV evacuate people up in the city down here?"

"Most of what NERV does is top-secret and classified," said Misato. "We can't risk someone unscrupulous discovering something and blackmailing us, or using it against us for personal gain."

Shinji managed to catch Peter's sarcastic expression in a reflection from a glass window, and shrugged.

They came to a stop at the circular door, which opened at the touch of Misato's passcard, and the three of them entered yet another elevator.

Half an hour after that, now thoroughly confused and in even more need of a drink than before, Peter flexed his weary toes as the three of them entered what seemed to be their destination. Misato led them into a large room, where busy scientists in lab coats were typing at computers as stern security guards toted expensive-looking rifles.

Peter watched a woman in a white lab coat approach Shinji and Misato, considerable confidence in her step and a powerful intelligence in her eyes. She had short blond hair, and seemed to be about Misato's age.

"Hey," the legendary outlaw said, hoping that at least _she_ would be able to see him, and would also overlook the fact that there were food stains on his shirt, and that he wasn't wearing shoes.

"Dr Akagi," said Shinji, bowing, his eyes flicking to his side to meet with Peter's.

Peter waved his hand around and into Dr Akagi's face, and like with Misato, it simply passed through unheeded. This done, he looked back at Shinji.

"You sure her name's not Professor Smokin'-Hot?" asked Peter.

Shinji turned red and coughed loudly, but recovered by the time he stood up straight again.

"Are you alright, Shinji?" asked Akagi.

"Y-yes, Doctor," said Shinji.

"Does she have a PhD?" Peter asked. "More than one? Can you get her to talk about it? Women with a passion..."

He shook his head helplessly.

"Good," said Akagi, not seeing Peter grinning at her. "We'll start the training. Get changed into your plugsuit."

"Alright," said Shinji.

Slightly louder, he added:

"I guess I'll go and get changed in the changing room now."

His eyes flicked to Peter for a brief moment, then went back to looking down at the floor.

"I kinda got that from context," said Peter.

"...yes, Shinji," said Akagi, "that is procedure."

Shinji nodded quietly and slunk off towards a door on the other side of the room.

"So," Peter called out to him, "I'll just stay here with the supermodel briga-"

There was a sudden jolt as Peter was yanked forth by an unseen force. He quickly stepped forward a few times to keep himself upright, as if he were running down a hill. But he was not pulled by gravity: instead, some unknown force dragged him towards Shinji.

"Wh-...Shinji?" Peter asked.

Shinji stared at him.

"Shinji, what is it?" asked Misato.

"Just a second," said Peter, "stay there."

He turned around and took one step away from Shinji. Then another. Then one more.

At the last, Peter's shoeless foot slipped just as it began to touch the floor ahead, and he tripped over, landing flat on his back.

"Are you al-..." Shinji began, stepping towards Peter, but he looked up from the foreigner to see everyone in the room staring at him.

"Shinji?" said Misato, looking concerned about his strange behaviour.

Shinji considered how well Peter had lied to him so far, and thought that given the circumstances, it wasn't a bad tactic.

"Are you all...alright?" Shinji asked the room. "A-after yesterday? That was the first Angel attack here, right?"

The people around him looked surprised.

"Yes," said Misato, her patience clearly wearing thin. "We're fine."

"Go," said Dr Akagi.

Shinji looked down, waiting for Peter to catch up to him, and then both walked into the next room, Peter phasing neatly through the door. It was filled with grey lockers and a single, pristine-looking wooden bench.

"So you're stuck with me," Shinji mumbled, facing the locker and beginning to unbutton his shirt.

"Hey, if anything, _you're_ stuck with me," said Peter, turning around. "You belong here."

"Hm," said Shinji.

He pulled out his plugsuit from the locker.

"Are you really from space?" he asked.

"Pretty much," said Peter. "I was born on Earth, and I'm human. Basically. But I've been off-world for nearly thirty years."

"What's it like?" Shinji asked. "Space, I mean."

Peter stared at the grey lockers in front of him, his back still turned.

"It's just...home," he said. "I move around a lot. Have a ship."

"With your friends?" asked Shinji.

"Yeah," said Peter.

He wondered where they were now, and hoped they were alright.

"I'm finished," said Shinji.

Peter turned back to look at the boy. He was wearing a skin-tight suit, coloured white and light-blue, and had small, hemispherical clips in his hair.

"You ready?" asked Peter.

Shinji said nothing.

"Okay, you're not _ready_ ," said Peter. "Of course you're not, they're puttin' you in the Punch Bowl From Hell to fight Salvador Dali paintings."

He looked down at Shinji's plugsuit.

"Does that itch?" he asked.

"The plugsuit?" asked Shinji.

He tilted his head.

"...it does," he admitted.

"Yeah, I snuck into a Aedian church once," said Peter, "had to wear a guard uniform. It was like a whole body condom, couldn't get the smell out for weeks."

"It bunches up," said Shinji, smiling a fraction, "and it makes weird noises. Like this."

He took a gloved finger and rubbed it against his chest, making a squeaky sound not unlike a pair of balloons meeting. Peter laughed.

"Let's go," Shinji said.

"I'm with you," said Peter.

He put a hand on Shinji's shoulder, which surprised the boy.

"...thankyou," Shinji murmured.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

A hulking beast with a low head and broad shoulders, fifty metres tall, stomped towards Shinji.

The sounds of bullets firing roared through the 3D simulation of Tokyo-3, shredding a bright red spot on the approaching enemy's chest. The monster fell to the ground, smashing up sections of road as it collapsed, and then it glowed with light and disappeared entirely.

" _All clips fired,_ " said the automated computer voice, calm and female _._ " _Reload_."

Shinji's hands shifted in the false-cockpit, and the simulated Evangelion's hands moved to reload the enormous submachine gun that it was holding.

" _Generating,_ " the computer said.

An identical copy of the monster appeared in the same place again, running towards the Evangelion. Shinji pulled the trigger on the controls attached to the false cockpit's interior, and the machine gun on the screen in front of him fired, ripping through the enemy's red core and making it explode again.

" _All clips fired. Reload_."

The cockpit was filled with careful grunts from Shinji as he reached for the next clip of ammunition and clicked it neatly into place. He'd been doing this for two hours, and it wasn't nearly so frightening now that he'd gotten into the correct, if extremely dull, rhythm of firing and reloading.

" _Generating._ "

The monster roared, Shinji fired.

" _All clips fired. Reload_."

Clicking, and strain.

" _Generating._ "

Roaring and gunshots.

" _All clips fired. Reload_."

" _Generating._ "

" _All clips fired. Reload_."

" _Generating._ "

" _All clips fired. Reload_."

" _Generating._ "

" _All clips fired. Re_ -"

"Alright, hold it!" Peter said.

Shinji jumped a little. The man from space was floating next to him in the LCL, having discovered that it could support him the same as Shinji. None of the NERV scientists monitoring the tests had detected any change in the LCL, barring a brief comment by Dr Akagi about sensing an 'acceptable level of fluctuations'. As far as Shinji could tell, he was the only one who knew Peter existed at all.

"Shinji," said Peter, "have you ever fired a gun like this before?"

Shinji very subtly shook his head.

" _Reload_ ," ordered the computer.

"I use pistols all the time," said Peter. "And if I know one thing, it's that most enemies don't just run at you with their weak points exposed, waitin' for you to shoot them."

Shinji couldn't respond, given that Dr Akagi, Misato, and everyone else in the other room were watching and listening to him through a camera, so he simply stared off into the general direction of Peter, guessing that the camera feed would make it look like he was spacing out.

"It's not fighting," said Peter. "They're teaching you to pull triggers and hope. And if the next Angel's like the one you've already fought, it's not gonna work, trust me."

"Shinji," the boy heard Dr Akagi say over the communications link. "Reload your weapon."

" _Reload_ ," the computer agreed, in the same calm voice as the last two hours.

Shinji continued to stare off into space, now not faking it so much, wishing either the computer or Peter or Dr Akagi would stop talking for just a second.

"They're settin' you up to fail," Peter said. "I've seen this kinda thing before, it's so they can control you."

"Reload your weapon, Shinji," said Akagi.

"And that's all you're gonna be," said Peter. "Human battery for whatever they wanna do with the Eva. They'll use you until you're dead."

"That's an order," Dr Akagi said.

" _Reload_."

"Reload the gun, Shinji," he heard Misato call out.

"Put it down," said Peter. "Tell 'em to change it up. If you're gonna fight, they can teach you for real."

"Reload the gun."

Peter folded his arms.

"It's useless," he said.

"Reload!" demanded Misato.

 _Useless._

 _Reload._

 _Useless._

 _Reload._

 _Useless reload useless reload useless reload useless reload useless useless useless useless useless..._

Shinji's eyes screwed up as he shut them and curled up in the LCL.

 _Useless_ _ **useless**_ _ **Useless! Useless! Useless!**_

Tears of anger fell from Shinji's eyes.

There was a sharp screeching noise as the entire false cockpit shook, the screen flickering and full of static, and Shinji could feel the LCL around him move and flow.

"Wh-..." Peter said, his word dying in the face of utter shock.

The simulated Tokyo-3 on the screen in front of them had had a twenty foot-wide crater blown through it, its edges forming hundreds of interlocking hexagon shapes. The epicentre was the Evangelion, unharmed according to the readouts.

Shinji's eyes opened.

"Shinji," he heard Dr Akagi say, "that was an AT Field."

Peter looked down at Shinji, still curled up.

"...I'm sorry," Peter said.

Shinji didn't look at either of them.

Dr Akagi ended the test soon after, telling Shinji that his synchronisation needed work, but that generating an AT Field was an impressive feat for his second time as a pilot. The LCL having drained from the training cockpit, Peter jumped out onto the walkway, and enthusiastically informed Shinji that he was bone-dry. Shinji did not respond.

The boy left the changing room a few minutes later, his spectral Guardian in tow, the LCL sticking unpleasantly to his skin even after diligent scrubbing. He approached Misato.

"Captain Katsuragi?" he asked.

"Oh, Shinji," said Misato, turning around. "I have more to do here today, but you can go home now, if you want."

"I suspect that would be for the best," Dr Akagi said.

Shinji noticed Peter glaring at Dr Akagi, but said nothing.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Together, on the elevator to the surface, Shinji and Peter stood in silence.

"We're doin' this?" Peter said. "Silent treatment?"

As expected, Shinji said nothing in response.

"Okay," Peter said. "I've gone through this many a time. I am a silence expert. Call me the President of Silence, 'cause I was elected to that position for four terms in a row. And that's not even legal according to the Shutting-Up Constitution of the United States of Not Talking, but I didn't say anything about it. I'm _that quiet_."

Shinji shuffled his feet.

"...camera," he eventually whispered.

"Yeah, back left corner," said Peter. "But they probably don't do audio, so try-"

He was cut off by the fact that Shinji had already thought of the same thing - facing away from the camera, his back to it, into the opposite corner.

"I'm not talking to you because you're not here," said Shinji.

"...what?" said Peter.

"Look at what's happened today," said Shinji. "I hear you singing just as my SDAT runs out of batteries and I have no music, you _happen_ to speak perfect Japanese, you say you're from _space_ , and nobody else can so much as touch you."

He took a deep breath to control his wavering voice.

"Your mother died, like mine did," he said. "You have a tape player, like mine. But you're this perfect, cool, older-bro type from space who thinks I'm the most important person in the universe, and you just happened to show up right after the Angel attacked. So either I'm crazy, or the Angel did something to me. And the only way to get rid of you is to forget you're there."

"You wanna know how I got here?" Peter said. "I fell asleep, on my ship, like I'm supposed to do every night. I'm meant to be in another _galaxy_ right now, with my friends, dead to the world! And this is the weirdest dream I've ever had, which is _not_ somethin' I say lightly."

"You're asleep?" Shinji asked, looking back at Peter.

"I should be, yeah," said Peter. "Hence, no shoes."

He pointed with unusual vehemence to his somewhat-blistered bare feet.

Shinji turned to face Peter, then faked a loud cough and put his hand to his mouth.

"So...it's like we're dreaming of one another?" Shinji asked, through his hand.

"You're kinda young, and not my type," said Peter.

"I-I didn't mean that!" Shinji protested.

"I know," said Peter. "And you're not the most important person in the universe."

"Who is?" asked Shinji.

"Gary Coleman," said Peter.

There was a long pause.

"Never mind," said Peter. "My point is, I'm helping you because you need help."

He put his thumbs around his belt loops.

"I got a friend back home," he said, "says I'm more honourable than I let on. You need someone who isn't throwin' you into the deep end with lead shoes and expecting you to be an Olympic swimmer. Right now, that's me."

"It's not that," said Shinji, looking down and wiping his mouth with his hand to distract the camera. "All you've done is try to help me, but I don't know if you're real or not."

"I'm real," Peter said. "And I've got proof, hiding up in your room."

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

"Alright," said Peter, walking through the door to Misato's apartment before Shinji could got a chance to unlock it.

The boy opened the door and closed it behind him, then took his shoes off before following Peter to his room door. Peter glanced at the kitchen clock as he walked past it, discovering that it was close to one o'clock already. It had been a long, and incredibly weird day. Even more so for Shinji, he imagined.

"Can I come in?" Peter asked.

"Alright," Shinji said, opening the door and walking inside.

The room was small, its ceiling low, with a small fan at the top. Three medium-sized boxes sat on the floor, written on in Japanese, which Peter guessed spelled out Shinji's name. A very thin mattress was lying on the floor, next to a window, and a wardrobe stood on the opposite wall.

"Check," said Peter.

Shinji nodded, and opened the wardrobe door. Peter's Walkman and its headphones were sitting on a pile of black school pants.

"Well?" asked Peter.

Shinji crouched before Peter's Walkman, and very carefully poked at it.

"You're real," he concluded, standing up again.

Peter smiled and opened his arms up wide.

"...what are you doing?" asked Shinji.

"Hug?" said Peter.

Shinji looked doubtful.

"Come on," Peter said. "Hug it out, bro."

"N-...no thankyou," said Shinji.

"You're sure?"

"Yes," said Shinji.

Peter thought more.

"Firm, manly handshake?" he suggested.

Shinji smiled, but shook his head.

Instead, he bowed low to Peter.

"Thankyou, sensei," he said.

Peter's eyes widened.

Shinji stood up straight.

"I'm going to take a shower," he said, taking another pair of pants and a shirt from his wardrobe, careful not to disturb Peter's Walkman. "Please wait here."

The boy left his room, and Peter developed a broad, helpless grin.

" _Sensei_ ," he repeated. "I'm like Mr Miyagi!"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Half an hour later, Shinji found himself standing out on the streets of Tokyo-3, staring up at a brightly-lit sign that Peter had led him to.

"Why are we _here_?" Shinji asked.

"Your real training!" said Peter, clapping him on the back.

"It's an arcade," Shinji whispered.

"Sure is," said Peter. "Now get inside, my feet hurt."

Mindful that he was giving Peter trouble, Shinji walked up the steps to the arcade and opened its glass doors. There were two levels of the arcade, rows of game machines stretching out ahead of him. Children, teenagers and adults wandered through both levels, playing and mingling.

At Peter's urging, Shinji walked down the aisles, carefully avoiding getting close to anybody. He'd spent a little time in arcades before, but only when he was much younger, and everything seemed unfamiliar.

"Which one?" he murmured, just loud enough for Peter to hear.

"Whichever you want," Peter replied.

Shinji didn't really know if he wanted any of them. They all seemed the same to him, and he wondered what the point was of even being there.

"That one," he eventually decided, pointing to an empty cabinet.

He stepped towards it. A glance at the top of the cabinet revealed it was about old airplanes, flying over the sea.

" _1943_?" said Peter.

"Have you played it?" asked Shinji.

"Yeah," said Peter, "it's just...you know what happened in 1943, right?"

Shinji considered it, mentally checking through his history lessons.

"There was a war, wasn't there?" he said.

"Yeah," said Peter. "We kinda...fought you guys. It didn't end well."

Shinji thought more about it.

"Oh," he said, remembering. "The atomic bombings."

Peter nodded twice, looking anywhere but Shinji's eyes.

"You weren't there," said Shinji. "And I wasn't there."

He thought of the Angel, and the way it shrugged off an N2 mine with barely a moment's hesitation. Deploying a nuclear weapon wouldn't even have slowed it down.

"And what I'm fighting doesn't care about where people are from," Shinji said. "It kills everyone. So...does it matter?"

"Guess not," Peter said, a smile returning to his face. " _1943_ it is."

Shinji pulled a hundred yen coin from his pocket and pushed it into the slot. Taking the joystick and leaning close to push the buttons, Shinji focused on the text on-screen. It declared 'Target: Rikaku'. His beige plane swiftly flew off from the runway, and Shinji frantically veered it left to right, spraying virtual bullets above with one of the face buttons. The counter slowly ticked down further and further as the green enemy planes overwhelmed him, and the screen flashed 'game over'.

"You got another coin?" asked Peter.

Shinji looked back at him, pretending to look back at the rest of the arcade, and nodded as subtly as he could.

"Not all of 'em can get you," Peter said. "Save your bullets for the tougher planes."

"Bullets don't run out," said Shinji.

"But your fingers get tired," said Peter. "Trust me, long hours in arcades, followed by entire nights of stickin' my hands on bags of frozen peas. And don't dodge so much."

"They'll run into me," Shinji protested.

"Most of 'em are just swooping," Peter said. "They want you scared, but they can't back it up. They're not worth your time. Wait for the bigger ones."

"...eggs," said Shinji.

"What?"

Shinji looked up and to his left to see an older boy passing.

"Uh...eggs," said Shinji. "I have to buy them."

The older boy stared at him for a moment before walking away.

"You ready to make omelettes?" asked Peter, a grin forming on his mouth.

"I can make omelettes by myself," replied Shinji in an indignant whisper.

"Put up or shut up," commanded Peter.

Shinji, being Shinji, elected to do both, and shoved another hundred yen coin into the machine. The menu and level screen flashed past, and Shinji focused again, intent on facing the video game with lightning precision. Then, perhaps, Peter would be able to leave.

People generally did, when it came to Shinji.

The game started, and the green planes flew down, but Shinji remained steady. Instead of firing, he pushed the joystick left, and the enemy planes missed his beige one entirely, neatly looping over themselves as soon as they got close. Shinji shut out the noise around him and watched as the second wave of planes did exactly the same thing. Peter's tactic worked, and he hadn't even so much as fired a shot yet.

The screen filled up with the swirl of enemy planes and the chirruping synthesised sounds of their pixel bullets, but careful weaving let Shinji come through unscathed, with the face button barely needed.

Shinji was too focused to notice, but he was beginning to smile.

The second part of the stage dropped Shinji's plane lower, and as the enemy planes swarmed again, a battleship on the water approached. It was covered with blocky cannons firing wildly to Shinji's left, and as the screen scrolled forth, his plane was struck again and again, despite his increasingly frantic flying. At last, the final bullet grazed him, and his plane exploded in a 16-bit fireball.

Shinji hung his head.

"The first stage," he said ruefully.

"Second half of the first stage," corrected Peter. "You got better."

Shinji looked back at the cabinet, wondering what the point of any of this was. Peter making him train on a simulation wasn't that much different to Dr Akagi doing the same. And this had nothing to do with the Eva.

But if Peter was right about NERV being untrustworthy, then Shinji could stand to hear him out. He still thought Peter might have been an Angel-induced hallucination, but the American seemed genuinely nice. He was like Misato, if she were a man and a foreigner.

"That's another thing," said Peter, glancing down at Shinji's plain clothes. "When I'm not gettin' dumped on planets at random in my sleep, I _try_ and follow some kinda style. You should as well."

"What do you mean?" asked Shinji. "Wear different clothes?"

"Yeah," said Peter. "School uniform's pretty basic. You're not gonna get girls that way."

He thought more about that, not wanting to isolate Shinji further, and added:

"Or guys. You know, if you're like Liberace, Elton John..."

Peter strained to think of another gay person.

"...Snagglepuss," he finally said.

He noticed Shinji's gaze had shifted over to a girl across the room. She had long, blonde hair, and was chatting to her friends while they played some kind of drumming game.

"Her?" Peter asked, indicating with his head.

"N-no," said Shinji, turning red and looking away. "She's really pretty, and she's got all those people near her. She's-"

"What?" said Peter. "Outta your league? Leagues are for football, baseball, and measuring distances under the ocean. Only thing that matters is if two people _work_."

He smiled.

"You wanna talk to her?"

"I probably shouldn't," Shinji said. "What with...my job, and everything. It's too dangerous."

Peter frowned. That wasn't why Shinji was refusing to talk to her, and not only did he know it, Shinji knew it too. Baby steps, though. He'd cross that bridge once he'd managed to persuade Shinji to master normal-person friendships.

Glancing around to make sure everyone else was distracted, Peter took out his Walkman and headphones. His finger on the fast-forward button, Peter wound them to the best song he could think of for this kind of purpose, and handed them to Shinji.

"Put 'em on," he instructed.

"Wh-...with the headphones on, I won't hear the game," Shinji protested. "How am I supposed to play?"

"Don't hear," Peter said. "Feel it. Just listen."

Shinji remembered the feeling of the song, hours ago. It was the most serene he'd felt since before he'd come to Tokyo-3. Even if it changed nothing about his video game abilities, it would be worth it if the music let him truly, properly relax again.

Copying Peter by placing the cassette player on his belt, Shinji dropped another hundred yen into the cabinet, then pushed the Walkman's play button. His ears were filled with the sounds of rock music, and although Shinji could tell that the lyrics were in English, he could somehow understand perfectly.

And Shinji was too busy avoiding the barrage of virtual bullets to properly wonder what a Cherry Bomb was.

He neatly evaded the ships' cannons and traded fire, his beige fighter always moving forward, until he came to a truly massive ship. Its swirl of bullets seared his plane as he only just failed to keep pace with its fire, but Shinji fired back, tensely weaving the ship like before, wary of his precarious life bar. The line of pixels grew short indeed, but the last shot of the enemy ship missed its mark, and Shinji laughed as the game declared the mission over.

Thirty seconds later, Shinji's plane was ripped to shreds by the triple-fire of a bigger plane, and the thousand cuts of the green looping enemies sent his twin-propellered fighter down to the virtual waters. But the song was good enough that Shinji didn't mind, and he waited until it was over to take off the headphones.

Holding them in his left hand, he faked another cough with his right, and said:

"Thankyou."

"I do stuff like this," said Peter. "Heroic stuff. Heroism. Things heroes do."

"This isn't really training, though," Shinji murmured, trying to keep his mouth movements subtle.

"Not for the robot," said Peter. "For here."

He poked Shinji's head gently.

"'Cause from what I can tell, you never win," said Peter. "You just grind and grind away at everything, and hope you'll run out of problems someday. There's a bigger reason to pilot the Eva than just them _asking_ you to."

"What?" asked Shinji.

"Why is everyone else here?" Peter asked him.

Shinji looked away from Peter, and saw the others in the arcade. Adults and children, parents with their families, couples, friends. The lanes and machines of the arcade were filled with people, and none were NERV or military.

"If you hadn't fought yesterday, everyone here would be gone," Peter said. "So would _this_."

A normal life wasn't for Peter, but it was worth protecting. And if Xandar could depend on a bunch of hardened criminals to ultimately step up, maybe Tokyo-3 could take Shinji Ikari.

With Peter's help, of course. Until his friends found him and Earth, the former Ravager was going to do everything he could to keep Shinji sane. Working out why he was a ghost would help, too.

Tears came to Shinji's eyes. For everything he'd done wrong, he had been a bulwark against the Angel. He was the reason these people could live normal lives for a day.

And hopefully, a lot more to come.

"Sensei," he said, not caring that people would hear him, "thanky-"

A gasp of horror stole Shinji's words.

Peter Quill was gone. Vanished entirely, as if he'd never been there at all.

Shinji looked back at the screen of _1943_ , then stepped away from the cabinet.

"I guess I was right after all," he said.

Keeping his head down, Shinji left the arcade for the long walk home, alone once more.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

"Quill?"

Peter jolted awake, his eyes flying open. He was back on the _Milano_ , with the other Guardians all around him.

Rocket was standing on his bed, clutching a silvery plastic bag in his small arms. Green-skinned Gamora smiled at him, one hand on her hip. The muscular Drax looked down with a cautious expression, his thick arms folded. Tall and leafy Groot stood behind them, towering over everyone else.

"What...what happened?" asked Peter. "How'd you guys get me? Did I even move?"

"You've been here the whole time, Quill," said Rocket, sounding confused.

"You were still as death," said Gamora. "We tried to rouse you, but nothing helped."

"...weird dream," replied Peter.

He'd never had one so vivid before, and seriously hoped it wouldn't happen again.

Peter's eyes moved down to properly look at the silvery bag in Rocket's hands, and realised exactly what it was. Looking more closely at Groot, Gamora and Drax, Peter realised that they were all standing next to clear bags of food on the ground.

Specifically, they were _his_ bags of food.

"Why're you all eating my stuff?" asked Peter.

"Well, we brought it over 'cos we thought it'd wake you up," said Rocket. "Then you didn't, and we got hungry."

He pulled out an orange wedge from his bag, and stuffed it in his mouth, crunching on it.

"I don't eat your food!" said Peter, indignant.

"You do not like our food," said Drax.

"That's not the point! Give it back!"

"I am Groot," said Groot, handing Peter the bag he was holding.

Peter was torn between thanking Groot for having the decency to return his food unopened, and questioning why the tree-alien would take it in the first place, given the fact that Groot didn't need to eat anyway. He clutched it possessively in one hand, then pointed insistently at the others.

"All'a you," Peter said, "give those..."

He grimaced, thinking better of it.

"...wait, no, it's got your fingers all over it," he said. "Transfer me five thousand units, each!"

"This is not worth five thousand," said Drax, staring down at his opened bag. "There is virtually no protein in it."

"Well, it's genuine Earth corn chips and they're not easy to get," said Peter.

"They don't even taste good," said Rocket as he stuffed a handful in his mouth.

"Then why are you eating them?" asked Gamora.

"Don't tell me what to do with Quill's food!" said Rocket, trailing crumbs over Peter's bed.

Aggravated, Peter pushed Rocket off, sending the diminutive alien sprawling on the floor.

"You made me spill it!" complained Rocket.

"I'm not lettin' you get crumbs all over my..."

Peter trailed off.

His Walkman and its headphones were not at his side. Patting all over himself, Peter couldn't find them on his bed, either. He definitely had them the night before.

But just a few minutes ago, he had handed them to Shinji.

"...what the fu-"

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX


End file.
